Garbage mail: wasteful… and ironic

By John Pierre | May 08, 2014

What a waste. Every single day of our lives, we find piles of garbage mail in our mailbox. It's not only a waste, it’s stupid. Except for some of the unwanted and unsolicited material that utilizes recycled paper, the cost of producing this pile of stuff comes at great expense to our struggling post office and to our forests.

It appears true that the U.S. Postal Service could possibly use some trimming, but that won't happen when their delivery vehicles are loaded to the gunnels with this trash. Then it is costly to us personally because it comes close to filling our recycle container. Without that pile of nonsense, we might not even need a recycling can.

There is one bank, for example, that sends my wife and me each a thick envelope of their many promotions almost on a daily basis. We've never been in their bank and never intend to darken their door.

We are quite pleased with the bank at which we have been dealing since 1955. It has changed ownership a couple times and names three or four times, but they have treated us well and with respect. They have been Bank of America for a few years now, and their downtown Edmonds branch is convenient and friendly.

Do the producers of these unwanted flyers have any way of determining from which addresses they are getting a paying response? Or do they even care? And who is paying for this frivolous mailing? The consumers of their products, that's who.

Today we received a glossy-paper, several-page mailing from a furniture company. Once again, we have never been in their store, and I have no idea how we got on their mailing list. And don't try to tell me that glossy paper came from recycled material. What a waste.

Born in Oregon during the Great Depression, my family moved constantly in search of work for a day, week or, if lucky for a month. We lived for varying periods of time in just about every state between Oregon and Florida (where we lived in a tent) and back again.

I joined the Navy on my 17th birthday, during the Korean War, and served on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier loading and fusing bombs and rockets on the AD-1 Skyraider prop driven planes of my squadron.

I was honorably discharged just before my 21st birthday four years later.

My wife and I were married in 1952 and have three grown children plus many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

I spent almost 40 years with a highly successful car rental business where I started as car washer and, though I never graduated from high school, retired as Executive VP and GM of 33 offices in Washington and Oregon.

During those years, in addition to my other duties, I wrote, edited and caused the publishing of a monthly in-house newsletter.